Policeman assassinated on the Champs-Élysées in 2017: the trial opens on Monday
Portrait of Xavier Jugelé, during the national tribute to the policeman killed on the Champs-Elysées, April 20, 2017. Reuters
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Four men are on trial from Monday, June 7 in Paris for their alleged involvement in the terrorist assassination of a police officer in 2017 on the Champs-Elysées.
They are accused of helping the assailant to obtain his weapon.
The attack had aroused great emotion and marked the presidential campaign.
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The killer will not be in the box.
On April 21, 2017, Karim Cheurfi, a 39-year-old Frenchman, approached a police bus parked at the top of the Champs-Élysées and fired an automatic weapon.
Sitting at the wheel, Xavier Jugelé, hit by two bullets, succumbed.
Two other police officers and a tourist were injured, the assailant was shot dead.
His
attack
was immediately claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.
On the benches of the accused, there will be four men: three are prosecuted for possession and / or transfer of weapons. Only to be judged with the terrorist qualification, Nourredine Allan, a Franco-Algerian of 31 years, who is accused of having sold the Kalashnikov to the killer. He is being prosecuted for terrorist conspiracy. Because even if the prosecution excludes at home any radicalization, he believes that he sold the weapon knowing that Karim Cheurfi "
had a resolute and displayed will to attempt the life
" of the police.
Nourredine Allan, a repeat offender, denies having provided the weapon and contests the terrorist qualification.
His lawyer Me Clarisse Serre also underlines that "
even the terrorist Islamist motive of the assailant is questionable
".
It was in prison that
Karim Cheurfi
, sentenced in 2005 for having already shot a police officer, would have become radicalized.
His family maintains that the thirty-something, followed for psychoactive problems, was more of an unstable delinquent than a terrorist.
A national tribute was paid to the policeman, posthumously elevated to the rank of captain and knighted in the Legion of Honor.
The attack had marked public opinion and the campaign for the presidential election three days before the first round.
The end of the campaign had been hardened, and the debates on the fight against terrorism put back at the heart of the election when France had suffered in 2015 and 2016 an unprecedented wave of attacks.
The trial which takes place before the special assizes of the Paris court is scheduled until June 18.
► To read also: France: national tribute for the policeman killed on the Champs-Elysées
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